S'pore institute creates world's first contact lens that darkens in sunlight
By Wang Eng Eng, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 03 November 2009 1609 hrs

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SINGAPORE: The world's first "photochromic" contact lens that darkens under sunlight has been created by Singapore's Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN).

IBN is now negotiating a licensing agreement with two companies to make and sell the lenses for markets overseas.

Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry S Iswaran opened IBN iCare, its new S$5 million lab at the Biopolis on Tuesday. He said the market potential is promising, with 310 million people worldwide who need their vision corrected.

The contact lens market size is estimated at US$6 billion and growing at five to 10 per cent each year.

It may look like any other ordinary lens, but the "photochromic" contact lens is able to change colour to protect your eyes against harmful ultraviolet radiation and glare. The lead researcher said the dyes within the nano structure of the lens are able to respond faster to light changes.

Dr Edwin Chow, team leader & senior research scientist, Institute of Bioengineering & Nanotechnology, said: "It enables a faster response time which means the time to change colour back and fade back to its original colour happens within seconds. This is amazing compared to the normal transition glasses which takes a few minutes for it to change back to colour."

It took less than a year to develop and it is expected to become commercially available within a year.

The lab is focusing on developing applications to treat eye diseases such as glaucoma through the use of drug loaded contact lens.

IBN iCare is Funded by Exploit Technologies, the commercialization arm of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, or A*STAR. It will collaborate with NUH Eye Centre to conduct clinical trials prior to commercialization.

Boon Swan Foo, executive chairman, Exploit Technologies, A*STAR, said: "Anything that is done by the research lab has to be applied. In this case, the clinicians in NUH were extremely excited and enthused by the material developed by Edwin at IBN. Because of that, they want to try them under clinical settings."

In addition to providing eye-care services such as lasik and refractive surgery for patients, NUH Eye Centre will also offer innovative treatments of vision correction using IBN's biomaterials. - CNA/vm